The Western Lands by William S. Burroughs Read Free Book Online Page A

upon to play. But dead easy. Besides, transplant surgery ties in with his objectives of hybridization and mutation.
    The problem is the rejection syndrome. If this obstacle can be removed, a biologic tidal wave will follow. But it is a formidable barrier. If the body rejects a life-saving organ from a fellow human, how much more immutably will it reject pieces of another species, or a biologic mutation within the species?
    But there is light at the end of the incision: brain tissue does not reject. It is a different class of tissue. It feels no pain, and does not renew itself or heal after injury. Joe knows better than to start blabbing about brain transplants, but he knows the idea is there in the mind and brain of any transplant surgeon.
    "Why not slip Einstein's brain into the body of a young biker whose brain has been destroyed in a collision?"
    Many recoil in horror from such a concept. Why, it could lead to immortality! Just shift the old brain from one body to another. And sooner or later they won't be waiting for accident victims.
    "Paging Doc Sibley . . ."—best scrambled egg man in the industry. He can switch brains in an alley.
    This is of no interest to Joe. Clearly possible, but why do it? Interspecies transplants offer more enticing perspectives. Say, the brain of a chimp in a man's body. Unhampered by the crippling emotional blocks so carefully installed in humans by interested parties, the chimp might prove to be a super-genius; that is to say, he might realize a relatively larger segment of the human potential.
    Why stop there? Why stop anywhere?
    Joe can't stop. He has no place to stop in. He can't love a human being, because he has no human place to love from. But he can love certain animals, because he has animal places.
    Grief is very painful for Joe—"iron tears down Pluto's cheek." He feels it in the plates in his skull, in his artificial arms, in his artificial eye, in every wire and circuit of the tiny computer chips, down into his atoms and photons.
    In setting up his project to research transplant rejection and immune response in animal subjects, instead of assembling a battery of immunologists and surgeons, Joe picked personnel without surgical training or specialized research experience. By the time a student gets through medical school his brain is so crammed with undigested, often misleading, data that there is no room left to think in. In addition to misinformation, the student has also absorbed a battery of crippling prejudices.
    As a renowned transplant surgeon with an impressive array of degrees and titles, he has no difficulty in obtaining funds for his project. He has only to point out the financial advantages: the personnel he has selected will work for one-fourth the usual fees. So why bribe some prima donna immunologist away from some other project? Most competent surgeons would not be interested at any price:
    "We are not veterinarians!"
    In fact, any surgeon who would agree to work in the Zoo, as it was called, is probably incompetent or worse. Doctor Benway is the only MD on the program, and his license has been called into question.
    Joe stresses mechanical aptitude, with particular emphasis on electrical and electronic expertise. Boys who from an early age took things apart and put them back together (more or less). Surgeons are nothing more than mechanics in any case, and many of them are piss-poor mechanics.
    Here are some of the persons Joe recruited:

    1. Electrician, inventor
    2. Computer programmer, hobby is to tie his own trout flies
    3. Mathematician, organic chemistry
    4. Wood and ivory carver
    5. Gunsmith, watch repairs
    6. Veterinarian, lost his license for treating pet skunks
    7. Gunsmith, inventor
    8. Stage magician, hypnotist
    9. Draftsman, makes model boats in bottles
    "Scrambles!"
    The Zoo Team plunges into an orgy of outlandish operations on the animal subjects . . . hearts, kidneys, lungs, livers, appendixes are exchanged in the operating room where often six